


We laid our names to rest

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Polyamory, Post-Framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 13:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: When they get back to base after escaping the Framework, Fitz, Daisy, and Jemma begin to rebuild.





	We laid our names to rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JujYFru1T](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JujYFru1T/gifts).



> Post-Framework POLYAMOROUS FitzSkimmons hurt/comfort.

So we found our way back home,  
Let our cuts and bruises heal.  
While a brand-new war began,  
One that no one else could feel.

[\- Mars, Sleeping at Last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtU_7SHYEnI)

-

They let Fitz out of medical early, but he hasn’t seen hide or hair of Daisy or Jemma since the Zephyr landed. He paces for a while, because he feels restless, like he’s been sleeping for years, but when that doesn’t solve the problem – when it doesn’t make Jemma or Daisy somehow appear before him – his frenetic energy dissipates and he lingers, still on his feet, but rocking more so than pacing. He waits.

Fortunately, by this stage, he doesn’t have to wait long before Daisy escapes the med bay and breathes a visible sigh of relief. Then she sees him, and opens her arms, and all but stumbles toward him down the hall.

He sweeps her up into his arms, more grateful to see her than he can put into words, and his whole soul (except for that dark, twisting shadowed land he sees in the distance) fills with warmth. It’s so wonderful to _know_ her, after all this time, and after all the times he can still remember, like bad dreams, when he had looked at her with coldness and disgust and hatred instead of love. She shakes in his arms and he can’t tell if it’s based on her quaking or just pure exhaustion and overexertion, but either way, he longs to draw it away from her as if he could drain the poison from her veins. 

It’s the best he can do to pull her back to arms length, and cradle her face in his hands. He runs the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone, where in the Framework, she’d had a cut dripping crusted blood down her face. Here, now, her skin is unblemished, but for the horrifically deep grey bags under her eyes. And Daisy smiles. 

“It’s so good to see you,” she breathes. _To see you, the real you, in the flesh and not a robot and not dead and not that soulless monster…_ She can hardly believe she’s breathing the same air as him again at last. 

“And you,” he replies, and he’s looking into her eyes with his own, deep and blue and so intense, like he’s trying to tell her through them how sorry he is, and how hurt, and how relieved. Instead of speaking it aloud though, he pulls her back in for an even more bone-crushing hug than the first one, and Daisy lets her legs turn to spaghetti, grateful to have something else holding her up after all this time. When he lets her go again, she stumbles, but of course he catches her. 

“Are you alright?” he asks. “Physically?” 

“Yeah, just… I’m so tired.” 

“And Jemma?” Fitz asks at last. “Is she..?” 

“Physically? Fine, I think,” Daisy says. “She’s in the shower.” She pulls a face at Fitz that reminds him, while mercifully excusing her from saying it out loud, that Jemma woke up dead in the Framework and hasn’t quite managed to shake it yet. 

“Okay. That’s good.” The tension that had grabbed briefly at Fitz’s chest begins to subside again, and he can feel Daisy leaning more and more heavily against him, which pulls his thoughts from Jemma for a while. Slowly but surely, he walks with Daisy down the hall to their bedroom. It’s pretty empty now – they’re in the process of moving out, stalled though it has been of late – but the bed is still there and though small, it’s the most inviting expanse of softness Daisy can imagine in the moment she sets eyes on it. 

She flops down onto the mattress gratefully, and closes her eyes, and groans as the weight of the world that she has left behind crashes over her. Fitz is reluctant – he feels like he could stand for a few more years at this rate – but Daisy looks so vulnerable like that, that he crawls across the bed toward her and props himself up nearby. She cuddles into him a little, but frowns at him. 

“You sure you’re okay?” 

“Physically,” he assures her, and she reaches across the space between them to intertwine one of his fingers with one of hers.

“You sleeping?” she asks. 

“Not for a while,” he replies, “but you go ahead. It’s my turn to look after you, right?” 

Daisy smiles at him with sympathy and gratitude, and as her eyes drift closed again he feels a layer of contentment settle over his heart. It’s something, at least, that he can keep her safe, and at this rate it feels like he would keep vigil over her for a thousand years if he had to. He certainly won’t fall asleep. The shadow land is still there in the back of his head, whispering that if he closes his eyes for too long, he’ll wake up and none of this will be real. 

For a while, it’s only Daisy’s finger, curled around his, that anchors him to reality. 

Then Jemma walks in. 

She’s exhausted too, as tired as Daisy, and though she might have showered this long to get the feeling of death off her, she looks as haggard as the day she crawled out of her grave. But this time, she’s not confused or frightened; this time, she finds enough energy and hope that a sparkle of love lights up her dazed, exhausted eyes for a moment and she tumbles into bed with a grateful hum. 

Unlike Daisy, though, she doesn’t drift off to sleep. The give of the mattress is uncomfortable and she feels vulnerable instead of relieved. She stares up at Fitz, and it’s a strange angle – as strange as the feelings are, finally seeing his face after all this time, and after all that the other creatures had done while wearing that face. 

“It’s me, Jemma,” he promises her, with a grave and scratching tone that she knows is the truth. “I’m okay, I’m here, you rescued me. We got out. You can rest now.” 

_Can I?_

Her muscles ache. Her eyes burn with the effort of staying open just as much as with the effort of holding back tears. It’s too much, everything is too much, to let her sleep. 

She cuddles closer to Daisy, thinking maybe that will make it better, and curls herself in around her. Daisy has been through so much and always takes the bullet for other people and Jemma never feels like she can express enough love to make it up, but she can protect her. She can watch her sleeping, if not entirely peaceful face and this is how she knows they made it. 

And the fact that Fitz is trying to hold her hand makes her stomach a little unsettled. Then he stops trying, and she feels better, and then she feels worse. 

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers, but she doesn’t quite look at his face. 

“I’ll still be here anyway,” he assures her. “We’re gonna be okay, Jemma.” 

_I’m sorry, I forgive you, I love you._

The words hover in a no-man’s-land between them and though they can’t see each other’s faces, they have matching tears pricking at the corners of their eyes. Fitz looks up at the roof. Jemma looks at Daisy. They’re here and they’re safe and everything’s going to be okay, one day, but for now the pieces are scattered, and only if they hold onto each other will they make it out the other side. 

For a long while, they all lay there in silence, listening to each other breathe. 

And then

Slowly,

As she feels her eyes drift shut at last 

Jemma reaches out for Fitz’s hand.


End file.
